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So i'm writing my Dissertation at the moment and i've got three weeks to do it. I've done a fair bit of research for it but haven't actually started writing yet. It's got to be between about 10,000 words. Anyone who has done one/is currently doing one got any pointers on how to best approach one?

(It's on American New Wave Cinema in the late 60s-mid 70s if anyone is wondering)

halfway through writing, decide that you haven't included something of vital importance, spend about a week researching and writing, only to reread what you've just written, decide it's irrelevant and delete it all

Mostly Easy Rider, The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, The Wild Bunch and Midnight Cowboy for the 60s. 70s will basically just be Robert Altman and Hal Ashby and then finish up with Jaws and Star Wars. Hard to compress ten years into 10,000 words.

mine was a total mess until about a day before when I made up my chapter headings. Ended up staying up for about 40 hours.

It didn't help that I also had another essay due that day (which was also worth an entire module of credits) that I didn't start until the day before, my supervisor was on leave for the entire period and that I was campaigning in local elections until a week before. I somehow go a high first though braaaaaaaaaaag.

You need to just be getting pen to paper or w/e. Sure you can still read as you go along but at this stage it's far, far more important that you're actually writing something up.

I have two years and it's already making me anxious. What if I can't get into that reference library in Tokyo? What if that guy's grandchildren won't talk to me? What if my fangirling is clouding my judgement? How on earth can I get this within the word count??? What's that book that I read and want to use and now can't find anywhere? Can I accept help from people of dubious political persuasions?

but yeah it has worked. I've done a lot more writing than before when i would just go to the library without any specific goals except 'doing my dissertation'

half way through a 12000 word dissertation now. It's very hard. I've had absolutely no preparation in writing an essay this big and it definitely showed for the 3/4 of the time i was meant to do it in.

Anyway yeah, just go in with set goals. I would recommend not dividing 10000 words by the amount of days you have left and saying you need to do that many a day. Set a really high goal, that way if you attain it then it's great and youre well chuffed, if you don't you'll be pissed off with yourself and want to do it properly tomorrow. And then hopefully you can spend a few days at the ends re-writing shit bits.

I've no real advice other than to say be disciplined, sit down each day and work hard.

But also be realistic about what you can write of quality in a day - I can get 2000 done. Others can probably do more and others less but try to discipline and time yourself and stop writing once it starts to become meaningless waffle you're only going to need to cut/excise later.

Help me decide on a dissertation title. It's about the river Thames in Three Men in a Boat, News From Nowhere and The Wind in the Willows. At the moment it's called 'Thames Immemorial: The Victorians, Albion and England's River' but I'm sure there are better puns out there.

but don't panic just yet. I've known people write excellent dissertations in plenty less time than that.

In particular, don't think that you have to spend all your remaining time mindlessly braindumping on the page. Investing some of that time in writing a solid plan will definitely be efficient in terms of marks. Try to be as clear and precise as possible about what your research question is and how you're answering it. Then structure the dissertation around building a logical argument for that answer. (Showing off all the stuff you've read is important, but far less important than solid argument / analysis.)

Also, remember the brutal reality: despite all the effort you've put in, this thing will be marked by a human being who will probably have a fuck-tonne of these to get through. You will not get long to convince them. So don't write like you're writing a novel. Have a clear intro and conclusion and write in short, easily digestible sentences. Getting someone to proof-read can really help here - ideally someone who doesn't know about your subject.

My results didn't support my hypothesis at all, so I had to spend 6,000 words dissecting, in detail, why the test was such a failure. Soul-destroying.

My trick was deliberately picking a subject that I knew my supervisor would find interesting. I got 70%, despite writing most of mine in the three weeks before the due date. I found a quiet place, no wifi, and just bashed out about 1200 words per day. Also carried around a notepad constantly in case some inspiration took me.

and if you can't think of how to word something or can't remember a detail just shove in some square brackets: [something about X here to follow on to next point]. this means you will end up with a big loose structure, more detailed and useful than a 'plan' (plans never work for me) but more malleable than a proper first draft, that can easily be changed and paragraphs or points shifted to more logical places without having to constantly cut/edit loads of carefully crafted sentences. i am absolutely obsessive about good structure but i find that good structure usually comes out in the actual writing, when you have some proper building blocks to play around with, rather than trying to force the writing into a pre-planned framework

but make sure you do at some point look back before right at the end, because reading over 10,000 words in detail takes a really fucking long time.

I messed around with my structure quite a few times til I came up with something I was happy with.

the other thing is referencing/bibliography. DO THIS AS YOU GO as much as possible. otherwise it just becomes a horrible tedious mess of forgotten page numbers and publication dates and locations. really annoying and unnecessarily time consuming

i would suggest doing some sort of in-line bracket system rather than footnotes/endnotes as you go, because if you move stuff around it'll mess up all the numbering and ibids etc. just put all the proper info in brackets after every quote/reference and then give yourself a couple of hours to put it all into footnotes at the end

I left my dissertation till a month before deadline, realised midway through my essay that my argument was bullshit (i did a philosophy degree), panicked and threw in loads of irrelevant historical crap which resulted in a 2.2.

i guess just spend a solid week researching your thesis, and then bash out the words without getting distracted with new ideas/becoming too self critical.

An undergrad dissertation should be about learning to work under supervision. In my experience unis try to get round this by framing your dis as the ultimate test of everything you've learned, which is only partly true. Stay in contact with them as much as possible, get them to read chapters as much as they can and give feedback. Just bug them basically.

Me? I had to do mine on my year abroad which meant I effectively had to work without supervision at time when I had a lot else on my plate. I also wasn't allowed to cite anything in a foreign language so I had limited access to materials.
Then my supervisor went on maternity leave without telling me, which was partly because I didn't contact her 4 months before it was due in. They then spent 2 months finding me a new supervisor who didn't think my topic was stupid.
By the end of it all I had about a month to research it and write it, which should've been enough really. Nevertheless I'm gonna put the blame at the feet of the uni. In reality it was mostly my fault for not being that clever or organised. My dissertation was crap and it was on something I actually cared about quite a bit so I was upset.

So yeah, just bug your supervisor. If they can't help you as much as you want then you can always blame them if you fuck it up, and if you do really well then you can tell yourself it was all you.

I'm a lecturer and lead a dissertation module (MSc level). Supervisors only have a certain amount of time that they can allocate to supervising students. Many supervisors will have several students and the time limit is to ensure all students get an equal(ish) level of input. Hassle your supervisor by all means, but you also need to recognise that they're really busy, got other priorities and need time to respond to requests. We have students complaining because a student has used up all their input in the first couple of weeks and then were annoyed when a supervisor refused to provide a second lot of comments on a final draft. Be sensible with your requests and avoid rubbing them up the wrong way. We can be grouchy bastards!

An undergrad dissertation is an independent piece of research, yes you're supervised but that's guidances and general direction, it's not the same as working as a researcher under direct supervision, or being a research assistant.

We recommend that all students have a first supervision meeting where the discuss general expecations and how things will operate. If your supervisor doesn't do this then make sure that they do. That way you can get down in writing what they agreed to do at the start.

It sounds like a departmental failing as much as anything. It sounds like an appalling lack of support especially for someone studying abroad.

If supervisors/tutors/course leaders/teaching support don't give adequate guidance and advice I don't think students have any choice but to be quite demanding about getting the requisite supervision sessions and attention.

it sounds like the uni cocked up and Yes was let down. If a course or module is fairly well established then you'd expect that their processes and guidance would stop these things from happening, however some students do unfortunately fall through the gap, and some supervisors can cause issues.